My book lists. And how reading changed my life.

Image by Amberrose Nelson from Pixabay

Friends, this week I want to share with you some books I’ve read over my adult lifetime that have influenced the way I see the world. 

After having studied in college as an International Business major and Spanish minor (and side studies in French), I got curious as to how the world was run, and by that, I mean what thoughts influence us as humans, and how we use our power. So I went back and took courses in political philosophy, which examines exactly that. This includes: 

• Machiavelli’s The Prince 

• Plato’s Republic, The Symposium, and his works with Socratic Dialogue

• The Marx-Engels Reader, a collection of writings by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels

• Closing of the American Mind by Allan Bloom

• Thus Spoke Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche

• The Human Condition by Hannah Arendt

• Works from Kafka, Dostoevsky, Sartre

• And even The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery 

• Not a book but a movie watched in class, and worth mentioning because it was eye opening at that time: White Man’s Burden (1995) with John Travolta and Harry Belafonte. 

These aren’t easy reads, which is why I chose to read these books in class settings with amazing professors who inspired deep discussions and assigned writing papers on them to show my understanding. 

• I also read The Bible. This wasn’t at school, but I couldn’t help myself; I had to read the book the world continuously refers to… nearly twenty years later, my son intended to read it as well, and he never got past the second page of Genesis (the first book of the Old Testament). He was reading it to me (as I sat next to him) when he got to: “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth…” after which my son said, “Oh. I get it now.” When he reached the part about the great flood that wiped out mankind except for Noah and his family and two of each animal, he closed the book. I’ll touch back on this later.

• Finally, but not lastly, I read Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand and The Wisdom of Insecurity by Alan Watts. 

Then I took some time to throw myself into work and start a family. 

I questioned a lot about life. On the one hand, I felt quite satisfied with the direction of my life. On the other hand, I found myself asking, is this it? 

At this point in my life, even though I thought Machiavelli’s assertion that the ends justify the means was brutal, I understood him more than I understood Plato. Nietzsche said God is Dead, and I felt that. And then, ironically, by the will of God, I found myself in a yoga class. 

I’m an East Asian, born in South Korea, who used to roll her eyes at Eastern lifestyle and medicine. I came from a generation of immigrants that would reject her own culture and fully indoctrinate herself in Western values and practices. So yoga was a surprise entrance to my life (1999). Having a child (1997) prompted deeper questions and caused me to look at what I truly valued and why. I was in search of the meaning of life. There I “stood” one day, trying to hold my triangle pose in yoga class while trying to breathe correctly, taking in every word and concept my teacher was delivering. 

This goal that many of us have to “become successful” - to have nice things, drive nice cars, go to nice places, send our children to schools that would prepare them for the best colleges, work out at the right gym, enjoy the finest restaurants, and make the right friends - felt all wrong. And at the same time, not to have these things available to me also felt all wrong. 

During one yoga class, my teacher said how he could better serve us by helping us approach our practice according to our doshas. I walked up to him afterwards and asked, what’s a dosha? And he put the book Perfect Health by Deepak Chopra in my hands. What was contained in this book were ways of thinking about myself, my health, wellness, experiences, and my own personal power that was never ever touched upon, even a little bit, in school; nor talked about on television or any mainstream papers, at that time anyway. After finishing the book cover to cover, I turned to the bibliography to find more resources and took it from there. This launched me on a decades-long journey through the rabbit hole. Looking back, there was no Google, so I consumed new information quite differently than I think I would have today, and I’m really grateful for that. 

The Rabbit Hole books I read

• Perfect Health by Deepak Chopra helped me break through some core assumptions. 

• Ayurveda: The Science of Self Healing by Dr. Vasant Lad helped me see my body in a different way.

• You Can Heal Your Life by Louise Hay helped me connect mind and body. 

• The Miracle of Mindfulness by Thich Nat Hanh helped me find joy and power of being in the moment.

• Anger by Thich Nat Hanh. This was the only emotion that I was really in touch with at the time, and it taught me how to harness it. 

• The Seat of the Soul by Gary Zukav. This one changed my understanding of power. I wasn’t ready for this one when I read it, but boy, did it have an impact on me. It was so beyond the reality I ever thought about. Though I haven’t gone back to re-read this, its concepts still live inside of me. 

• A Return to Love by Marianne Williamson. This one changed my understanding of love.

• Be Here Now by Baba Ram Dass. Helped me break through some core assumptions. 

• The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz. Super simple and profound, it’s a bible to live by.

• Science of Breath by Swami Rama. He was the first one from India who walked into a medical facility in the U.S. to defy science and show how much power we have over our body. 

• Food and Healing by Annemarie Colbin. I was guided towards food as medicine when traditional medicine didn’t work for my 4-year old daughter. This book put so much power into my own hands as it relates to food, healing, and medicine. I had no idea this world existed. 

• Heaven’s Banquet by Miriam Hospodar. A receipe book and my bible for Ayurveda, food, healing, and Joy. I friggin love this book. 

• The Diamond Cutter by Geshe Michael Roach. I was looking for a book to guide me through the world of business living my spiritual values. This book also changed how I take in life experiences. 

• The Path of Practice: A Woman’s Book of Ayurvedic Healing by Bri Maya Tiwari. A beautiful story of healing from the inside out, getting at the root of our dis-ease. 

• The Sutras of Patanjali, translation by Sri Swami Satchidananda. Like the political philosophy books I read in my 20s, this is a good one to read in a classroom or study group format.

• Before He was Buddha: The Life of Siddhartha by Hammalawa Saddhatissa

• Meditation as Medicine by Dharma Singh Khalsa, MD

• Divine Design: How You Created the Life You are Living by Gail Minogue, my first peek to how numerology works.

• Kirtan: Chanting as a Spiritual Practice by Johnsen and Jacobus. The power of mantra on your mind. 

• Meme Wars: The Creative Destruction of Neoclassical Economics by Kalle Lasn. Helped me break through some core assumptions around the conventional wisdom we have around economics.  

• Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson helped me understand how the people we surround ourselves with impacts our own excellence.

• Zen Shorts by Jon J Muth. Written like a children’s book, these are stories that take 30 seconds to read, each delivering lessons to free us from the prison of our own ruminations. 

• The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything by Ken Robinson, PhD. Passion meets talent meets parenting. 

• Protecting the Gift: Keeping Children and Teenagers Safe (and Parents Sane) by Gavin de Becker on how to raise children to trust their intuition and effectively protect them without instilling fear. 

I read, applied new concepts into my life, and sought out doctors, wellness practitioners, and spiritual communities that supported my endeavor. And then I took some time to learn directly from teachers, take teacher training, teach others, work with coaches, become a coach, and create teachers and communities of my own. 

To learn something, read about it. 

To understand something, write about it. 

To master it, teach it. 

-Yogi Bhajan 

This one quote changed my life. Prior to reading this for the first time, I used to think that I had to master something in order to teach it, which, to me, having had no clear idea of how to master anything, meant that I would never be good enough to teach. This one quote gave me permission - or directive - to teach so that I may master anything I wanted. 

I always come back to reading, to keep on learning. Naturally, writers are readers. We are active learners. We read, we write. We read, we write. And we teach. 

My 7 favorite books over the last 7 years 

1. Breath: the New Science of a Lost Art by James Nestor. An absolute must-read. Sounds boring but the author’s stories and case studies will grab you from the beginning. 

2. Atomic Habits by James Clear. Another must read. 

3. Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion by Gregory Boyle, a Catholic priest and founder and director of Homeboy Industries, the world’s largest gang intervention and rehab program. He will make you laugh, cry, and change how you think about those that are so easy to judge. 

4. The Book of Joy by His Holiness the Dalai lama, Desmond Tutu

5. The Code of the Extraordinary Mind by Vishen Lakhiani

6. Limitless by Jim Kwik

7. The Power of Your Subconscious Mind by Dr. Joseph Murphy. You don’t ever need to know the Bible (or be a Christian) to make your subconscious work for you, but if you’ve ever needed a different translation of the Word, this is it.

What about fiction?

I also read fiction, which is important to do, in my opinion. It touches a different part of you than anything you can get from non-fiction. You gain so much humanity through fiction. It helps you develop empathy and emotional skills, promotes a deep morality, and it enhances your ability to understand others. 

Fiction is the lie through which we tell the truth. - Albert Camus

If you’re trapped in this identity that you only read non-fiction (I used to say that, and when I started reading fiction, my closest friends confessed to me that it was super annoying to hear me say the former), I challenge you to take pause for an honest moment and listen to all that you’re implying when you say that. 

And since I brought this up, here are some non-fiction books I thoroughly enjoyed: 

1. Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir

2. Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner

3. Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus

4. A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman

5. The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab

6. The Midnight Library by Matt Hag

7. On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong (blends fiction and memoir)

Love, 

Savitree